The rest of Class 2A first noticed it at the Sports Festival. The whole world noticed the perpetrators, of course - last year's champion and vice-champion were sure to draw many eyes. But not for this reason.
They weren't sure what it was, to be honest. All they knew was that Bakugou was giving yet another invective filled speech of unwelcome, and then suddenly Todoroki's monotone was overlaying it, projected to reach the rest of the class, who were crowded together on the grounds.
"All of you extras and shitheads have been fucking annoying since I got here. If I didn't explode your discount asses on the daily, you might get fucking smart about who's the best around here," shouted Bakugou.
"My peers have challenged each other and myself over the last twelve months, and I've become a better person and a hero because of them," intoned Todoroki.
"I've got the best fucking Quirk the genetic lottery has to offer, and if I don't end up at Number One some day, it'll be a failure of the goddamned system. The rest of you weak-ass fuckheads better stick to the other shit, you're just as useless as Quirkless losers," Bakugou swore.
"I know that this competition, like the Hero Billboard Rankings, is tailored to benefit those with flashy offensive Quirks. I'd like to use my platform of privilege to assure you that every Quirk is valuable and can contribute to society, just like every person can, Quirk or no Quirk."
"Now it's time to stick it to the assholes who run this shit and show them what we're fucking made of. If you're too lame to up the ante, step the fuck off of this fucking field!" yelled Bakugou, finishing off with a scream of incandescent rage.
"Finally, I'm incredibly grateful to our teachers for their guidance and mentorship," Todoroki translated. "Now get out there and punt your previous personal best into the sun. Plus Ultra!"
Though reactions varied, all of Class 2A could agree that this interpretation of the opening speech was incredibly touching. Midoriya had been bawling since the first sentence, and Kirishima burst into manly tears at the sentiments of Quirk equity that Bakugou was expressing in his extremely roundabout manner. Uraraka had died of cuteness and was doing her best to ascend to the next life via her quirk, only being anchored to this one by Shouji's many arms, which were draped over her for emotional support.
Bakugou was extremely confused when he descended the podium and stormed right into the middle of a massive group hug. His protesting incoherent scream was translated by Todoroki into, "I love you all so much, except you Mineta, now let's go kick ass." All Might himself couldn't have given a better huddle speech.
Midoriya was still hiccupping sobs throughout the entire obstacle course race, and accidentally flattened a building when his shaking shoulders got too close. Oops.
Bakugou, flying by on exploding palms, yelled at him to keep his shitty Quirk out of his way, and Todoroki, hot - and cold - on Bakugou's heels with a slide of ice, intoned: "He doesn't want to see you breaking any bones today, Midoriya."
Midoriya almost melted right then and there at the sheer amount of caring Bakugou was exploding in his direction. It might also have been due to the sheer amount of flame Todoroki was also funneling in his direction.
So at the end of the day, it was to no one's surprise that Class 2A voted Todoroki and Bakugou joint MVPs of the tournament.
"Fuck yeah I'm the Most Valuable Player," yelled Bakugou. "Which is a fucking SINGULAR noun, did NONE of you grammar-inhibited asshats see the way I explodo-killed Icyhot's radius and ulna? Or are you all fucking failing anatomy too?" Todoroki, left arm in a cast, had started to stage-whisper a translation to Momo, but then paused and scowled.
"Next time I'll make my ice thinner so that you can explodo-kill your own ankles getting out of it," he said, perfectly inflectionless.
"Fuck you, go eat a bag of bad cat food and die, this arm bloody hurts," translated Bakugou, looking just as shocked as everyone else.
The unexpected role reversal was not just a one-time fluke. After the Festival, spirits were high but bodies were tired and clumsy, so the lunch hour saw several cafeteria mishaps.
No one foresaw the sheer amount of built-up hatred that came gushing out of Todoroki via Bakugou when a certain grape-headed mini-monster accidentally overturned Todoroki's tray of soba in the lunch line.
Outwardly, Todoroki just stared down at Mineta with a mob king's stone-cold gaze.
Bakugou took one look at that and interpreted it as: "You fucking worthless little piece of shit."
"That soba was worth more to society than you are," Todoroki added.
Evidently that was the equivalent of a five-minute long anti-harassment feminist rant whose highlights included: a five-step Respect Women grape juice cleanse that consisted of increasingly villainous uses of various Quirks upon Mineta, Todoroki's mommy issues, to literally no one's surprise, and the fact that Todoroki had not one but two weekly subscriptions to florist shops in order to do damage control to the women of Class A.
"Every one of these amazing women is a goddamn QUEEN, so for fuck's sake stop stepping on their gowns!" was the finishing touch, delivered by Todoroki's narrow-eyed mismatched glare and Bakugou's stirring verbal rendition thereof.
This earned Bakugou and Todoroki a ten-minute long standing ovation. However, it was nothing in comparison to the celebrations when, the next day, they found out that Mineta's spot in the class had been given to Aizawa's secret lovechild.
It seemed to occur voluntarily at first, but if Class 2A knew anything about Bakugou and Todoroki, it was that they would never volunteer to talk to the press. This was a daunting standard to enforce, however, when you'd just stopped a top-twenty villain from swallowing an elevated train, and you were both attractive, up-and-coming young heroes.
"We're here at the scene with the heroes-in-training who foiled a villain even the pros were struggling with just weeks ago!" They all watched the reporter chirp her opening blurb before swooping in - literally, she had a bird-like Quirk - to corner the two for an interview.
"How does it feel to accomplish something so incredible at such a young age?" she asked an emotionally-constipated Bakugou, though the question was clearly jointly directed to the equally emotionally-constipated Todoroki.
Bakugou blinked dust out of red eyes, opened his mouth, and immediately got bleeped.
The bleeping continued for a long time.
After a five-second delay, subtitles appeared, but they were in the distinctly bland phrasings of Todoroki - whose mouth they could see was moving, but they had little chance to hear over the bleeping. It's an honor to serve the citizens of this city and our duty as the next generation of heroes to ensure their safety, they read. He's proud of his actions here today and those of his patrol partner and support team as well. End of official statement.
"Todoroki Shouto, how proud are you to be contributing to your father Endeavor's legacy as the Number One hero?"
A muscle in Todoroki's jaw twitched.
"What the BLEEP does that BLEEPing BLEEPbag have to do with any of this, where the BLEEP is he, not BLEEPing here that's for sure, and I'm honestly surprised you remembered Shouto's BLEEPing name," translated Bakugou.
Finally, Todoroki attempted to verbalize his anger himself. "Fuck Endeavor."
"BLEEP Endeavor," repeated Bakugou, confirming once and for all how much expectations and profiling went into the media's representation of a character.
It looked like both boys wanted to leave after that, but the reporter pressed on, asking if they had anything to say to their fans.
"The BLEEP are you doing asking more BLEEPing questions for?" shot back a clearly irate Bakugou. Bakugou gestured towards Todoroki, who was standing impassively at his side. "My partner is bleeding his ass to death over there, and you want me to say some nonsense to some non-ex-BLEEPing-sistent fanbase?"
This, of course, led to Todoroki turning around to check out his own backside on national television, Bakugou facepalming not himself but Todoroki with a mild explosion, and dragging the newly-dazed boy off to the paramedics while hollering in his ear that he had a cut on his BLEEPing arm, not his BLEEPING BLEEP, you BLEEP.
It was generally agreed upon that something strange was happening, and that, as the smartest person in the class, Yaoyorozu Momo should be in charge of sussing it out. It was a consensus that lasted up until the moment that Momo ran up to Bakugou in quirk training, giddy with excitement, and exclaimed: "I finally perfected nitroglycerin!"
In quick succession, she formed a drop from her lower arm, grew a dot of phosphorus sesquisulfide and a dot of brick on her thumb and finger pads, and snapped her fingers the second the sweet-smelling drop reached her hand.
The resulting explosion blew her off her feet, and nearly took off her arm as well.
"You fucking IDIOT," roared Bakugou, the second before the shock and pain set in.
"You are a genius," translated Todoroki, quickly frosting over her roasted arm.
"How the fuck did you forget your damn skin isn't explosion proof, you're supposed to be the smartest person in the class," yelled Bakugou. That apparently required no translation, so Todoroki took the opportunity to signal to Aizawa that they would take Momo to Recovery Girl.
"If you want to cramp my style you'll need some specialty support shit," grumbled Bakugou as he slung Momo's uninjured arm around his neck. "Go see pink-haired bitch before you even fucking think of begging me for the nitroglycerin-for-dummies TED talk on how not to blow yourself up."
"He's adopting you effective immediately," announced Todoroki, from Momo's other side. "You're his new protégée and he'll make sure you're ten times the hero he is, if it's the last thing he does."
Bakugou attempted to glare a hole in Todoroki's two-toned head, but since he and Momo were of a height it didn't reach its intended target.
Still, he could bear with Icyhot's interpretation if it meant that Momo's tears of pain were now mixed with tears of happiness.
It even persisted when seemingly no one else was around. Hagakure was catching some rays on the first really warm day of the year when Todoroki stalked out of the dorms, phone pressed to his ear, and started pacing. From previous occurrences of the kind, Hagakure surmised that he was being nagged by Endeavor, and wisely chose not to announce her presence.
Todoroki was rolling his eyes expansively, huffing irritated breaths, and generally being the poster boy for a petulant teenager while waiting to get a word in edgewise.
It seemed like he was willing to wait this out for an uncomfortable amount of time, when a spiteful whirlwind of spiky blond hair rounded the corner, took one look at Todoroki's expression, and stomped right up to the other boy.
Bakugou snatched the phone out of Todoroki's cold hand, smashed the speakerphone button, and screamed into the device. "Hey fuckhead, Shouto's not even fucking listening, he's a passive-aggressive little bitch that has zero respect for you after the way you've treated him and your whole fucking family, the only reason he took this call in the first place was so that he could get the satisfaction of mashing the fucking 'end call' button at the height of your assholery. So why don't you cut the crap, try and pull the shit you're trying to pull, and Icyhot can tell you to fuck off himself."
He threw the phone back at Todoroki's chest. The corner of Todoroki's mouth twitched up in what, for him, was a truly unhinged and vindictive grin, as he very slowly and deliberately hit the 'end call' button.
Bakugou tore his eyes away from the disturbing sight, muttering something under his breath about sadistic candy canes that always stabbed the roof of your mouth when you least expected it.
Todoroki's face went back to its usual imitation of a particularly boring shard of pottery, but he dramatically flung the phone away from him in a true act of selfless teenaged rebellion.
Hagakure squealed, barely stopping it from smacking her in the shin. "You're welcome," she sniffed, holding up the device and pointedly ignoring the two wide-eyed glares directed her way.
"The fuck are your clothes?" demanded Bakugou.
"Who sunbathes with clothes on?" she shot back, indignant.
"No one can bathe in the sun," said Todoroki, dead serious. "Its surface temperature is six thousand Kelvin."
Hagakure blinked, and really wished that Todoroki could see her face right now.
Bakugou, miraculously enough, did not explode, instead choosing to ignore Todoroki entirely. "You can't even see your tan, so what's the point?" he growled.
Hagakure blinked again. "I'm black," she said slowly. "Tanning was never the point. The point is that it's fun. The point is that I live in perpetual fear of Aizawa-sensei using his Quirk on me during training. The point is that this is nice, and relaxing. Words that you might not know the definition of."
"I believe neither Bakugou nor I understand the appeal of lying around sweaty and naked, but I'm glad you enjoy it," offered Todoroki.
Interestingly enough, that did cause an explosion. "The fuck you trying to say about me, Half 'n Half? If I want to get a tan it'll be the best goddamn tan you've ever seen. Or not seen," he tacked on, glancing in Hagakure's direction.
Todoroki had an odd non-expression on his face as he was compelled to interpret. "He says he's the -"
Bakugou slammed a hand over his mouth, muffling most of the words, but Hagakure was an excellent listener. He's the first dictionary definition of disaster gay, she heard. And has often wondered what a darker skin tone would do for his sex appeal.
She couldn't think of a single reason why Bakugou wouldn't be okay with her hearing that. Lord knows all the other things she'd heard from him.
It had to be the effect of a Quirk, they all agreed after that. Time to call in the heavy hitter, in the form of one Midoriya Izuku.
Much to her chagrin, Uraraka had to call in assistance from Kirishima for the setup, because not even she could wrangle the rabid alley cat that was Bakugou. Midoriya, she could just pull down the hallway by the hand, giggling all the way.
To be very clear, he was the one doing the giggling.
"Uraraka, how are you using your Quirk to make my stomach float but not the rest of me? I didn't know you could do that, think of the applications -"
"That's your giant crush on me, not my Quirk, dummy," she replied fondly, but not without some annoyance. "How many times do I have to tell you that I'm a lesbian?"
"Once?" Midoriya squeaked, betrayed. "Just once would have been nice?"
Okay, so that one was on her. "Eh… well, let's talk about that later, right now it's Quirk analysis time! Featuring your best friend and your childhood best friend-slash-bully! Have fun!"
Uraraka shoved Midoriya into the study room, deftly exchanging him for Kirishima, who she floated just a little to get him out the door before Bakugou could catch on and make a break for it. She slammed the door shut behind them. "And don't come out until you've figured out what's going on!" she sang out, ruffling Kirishima's hair (ouch, ow, bad idea, how was it that pointy?) before leaving him to stand guard.
"You know, we could just…" Inside the room, Todoroki mimed an explosion in the direction of the door.
"No, no, Uraraka's right, it's time to get to the bottom of this," Midoriya said, whipping out a notebook. "Now, I have a couple of theories, but I'm going to need your cooperation and honesty for this to work."
Todoroki and Bakugou exchanged glances. This was not going to work.
"Right!" Midoriya's smile was blinding. "Let's get started! So most people are convinced that you two somehow got hit by a Quirk, but there's a couple problems with that theory. First of all, transmitter-type Quirks like these tend to only affect multiple people if said people are first in close physical proximity. Not like you two aren't on occasion, just that it's very improbable to me that both of you, who are hyper-vigilant by nature, could have been a) with each other, b) physically close to each other, and c) completely unaware of getting hit by a foreign Quirk."
"Utterly improbable," agreed Todoroki, very studiously avoiding looking at anyone.
"Ridiculous," growled Bakugou, also directed over Midoriya's shoulder.
"I know, right?" Midoriya looked pleased to have his analysis supported. "I mean, I tried to imagine a bunch of situations in which it could be true, just to play the devil's advocate. Quirkless sparring was the first thing to come to mind, but I crossed that out because senses are heightened during combat, not dulled. Then I thought about studying, but Todoroki usually studies with me and Uraraka, but sometimes Momo and Jirou, and Kacchan just kind of glares at his textbooks until they fold and give him the information he wants. Then I tried picturing some more far-out scenarios, like maybe you both went to a cat café, but that also doesn't make much sense because why would just the two of you go together when you know how much Tsuyu and Kouda love cats? Maybe if, and this is really wild, you were on a d-"
"Cut to the chase, Midoriya," interrupted Todoroki.
"Sorry, sorry," Midoriya waved his hands about, flipping pages in his notebook. "So many circular links in the evidence! Now the counterpoint, what if it's not a Quirk, is equally puzzling. I know you two have been friends for a while -"
"The fuck Deku, we're not friends!" yelled Bakugou.
"We're totally friends," translated Todoroki, somehow pulling off a smug deadpan. He dodged a head-height explosion.
"- so maybe you've just been around each other enough to establish a fundamental understanding of each other." Midoriya turned the deep green wells of his eyes on Todoroki. "I'm a bit hurt though, that you figured out Kacchan before me? I mean, I've known him since we were kids and you've known him for, like, a year. Not that you're not very smart and everything, it's just.. well…"
"But I haven't figured out Bakugou at all," blinked Todoroki.
"Of course Icyhot would fucking tell you, shitty Deku, he's your best goddamn friend!" Bakugou shouted, and instantly looked like he regretted it.
"Huh," Midoriya's eyes lit up, and he reached for a pencil. "So this only happens when one of you is upset? Because it didn't earlier when you agreed with each other. Unless that was also an interpretation? The problem with this scenario is that it's so broad! I'll need you two under close observation for, like, at least a week in a controlled environment in order to -"
"NO," shouted the two in question, together.
"I mean, you could just tell me what's going on," sulked Midoriya, although the calculated gleam in those eyes was far from innocent.
Bakugou looked at Todoroki. Todoroki looked at Bakugou. It was a strange look.
"Nothing happened," they chorused.
"Get your own fucking words, Candy Cane, stop stealing mine!"
"It's not my fault that my word choice is the most suitable for the situation."
"Strange," muttered Midoriya, making more notes as they continued to argue. He kept muttering, as they kept bickering, and minor explosions and icicles got involved. Was it just that they couldn't talk to other people without the urge to interpret kicking in, or was it -
"Aha!" Midoriya jumped and almost hit the ceiling in his excitement. He pulled his Quirk back far underneath his skin. "It only happens when you're angry!"
"The fuck part of NOT ANGRY does this look like, Deku?!" shouted Bakugou, who currently had Todoroki in a headlock. Looking bored, Todoroki casually set the left side of his face on fire.
"I guess that's … just normal interaction for you two?" Midoriya hypothesized. "Hey, Todoroki, you know that theory you have about Sir Nighteye being the time travelling lovechild of All Might and my mom?"
"Yes?" Todoroki perked up, interested. "'Foresight' was clearly a misnomer of his quirk. It should have been called 'Hindsight', because the reason he could see the future was because he was sent back from the future. And also, the hair should have been a dead giveaway. To say nothing of the way All Might looks at your mom."
"…Right." Taking a deep breath, Midoriya braced himself. "Well, it's a sucky theory, and it's wrong. He was bleeding all over Uraraka's costume, and I got some of it DNA tested, and you're wrong. And All Might and Mom are just friends!"
Todoroki's eye twitched.
"What the fuck, Deku," Bakugou hissed on his behalf.
"It was a perfectly good theory," said Todoroki, sounding even more stilted than usual. "It had a lot of solid evidence behind it."
"Ah, so it is anger," muttered Midoriya, mostly to himself. "So you're like, each other's anger interpreters. Sorry, Kacchan, I had to test it on Todoroki because you're always angry. Except when you're actually fighting with him, which is really weird, unless this is actually a Quirk, in which case maybe you're immune to the person you were jointly affected with, but now this comes back around to the question, when were the two of you hanging out in close proximity and also entirely unaware of your surroundings? Unless -"
"Do you have any idea how many hours Half-'n-Half spent coming up with that bullshit?" screamed Bakugou. "It's like you just took his perfect baby kitten and tore its heart out in front of him. And then ate it."
The strength of that reaction was a little much for even Bakugou, who now rounded on Todoroki. "The fuck is wrong with you?"
Todoroki sulked.
"Icyhot's fucking pissed as fuck at you right now, Deku," translated Bakugou, although it didn't take a genius to see that. Red eyes narrowed. "And so am I. Didn't Auntie Inko teach you any damn manners? Way to go shit all over a dude's hard work, you inconsiderate little fuck."
"Your mother is too much of an angel to raise a meanie-pants," said Todoroki, making zero effort with his interpretation.
Midoriya's eyes widened as he connected the dots. "Kacchan did you just - oh my God, I didn't realize how you felt about To -"
An explosion cut off whatever he had been about to say, and when the smoke and steam cleared, Midoriya was frozen in an ice block with Kirishima. Kirishima leaned as far away from Midoriya as he could get. The expression on that baby-round, maniacally laughing face was entirely too unnerving.
"The fuck is this shitty Quirk going to wear off?" growled Bakugou.
"So you think it is a Quirk, then?" asked Todoroki.
"Deku's a lot of things, Peppermint Patty, but wrong about Quirks isn't often one of them."
Todoroki blinked. "I think that's the first nice thing I've ever heard you say about Midoriya."
"Shut the fuck up! Besides, why else would I have a shitty little voice that sounds like Utsushimi Camie of all people fucking up the inside of my head until I say what it wants me to say about your shitty feelings?"
"Hmmm. Mine just sounds like you."
"Fuck yeah, it's cuz I'm awesome."
Silence fell back onto the roof of the UA dorms. They should probably pick a better place to avoid getting hauled to Aizawa's office to be berated for even more property damage, but it was good enough for now.
"Do you remember getting hit by a Quirk that evening?" asked Todoroki, eventually.
Bakugou exploded. "WE AGREED TO NEVER SPEAK OF THAT AGAIN. SO WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SPEAKING ABOUT IT?!"
"So you'd rather have this be permanent," Todoroki droned.
"Fuck no, I just - am NOT going to talk about that. Ever. And neither are you. We agreed."
"Okay, so what if we don't talk about it, but we each review our memories of the incident, and see if we remember anything queer about the situation."
By the end of the sentence, Bakugou was tomato-red and in a near-berserker state. "There wasn't anything not queer about that shit," he howled, but then lapsed into a silence that Todoroki took for compliance.
It was the evening before the Sports Festival. They'd been walking back from the convenience store, doing their usual back-and-forth that was technically a conversation. Bakugou dropped f-bombs, Todoroki dropped truth bombs that were sometimes tangentially related to whatever Bakugou was currently on about, and somewhere in the midst of all that their braggadocio regarding tomorrow's competition reached a peak and boiled over.
Todoroki had found himself in a familiar position, the collar of his shirt clenched in Bakugou's fists as the blond screamed 'DIE' in his face. What happened next, though, made him go slack in surprise, his back crashing into the side of a vending machine as he attempted to process. Yay, free drink, I hope it's strawberry milk, was the first thing that crossed his mind, seeing a bottle fall out of the corner of his eye.
Apparently his brain still hadn't registered that Bakugou was kissing him. And he was kissing back.
This was, perhaps, a natural escalation of their rivalry, Todoroki concluded when they'd been at it for long enough for him to get used to the sensations - as much as that was actually possible. Bakugou's lips were surprisingly soft for the amount of force and persistence they carried; his skin was too, and it had somehow found its way under Todoroki's hands.
These were not the details relevant to the current possibly-under-the-influence-of-a-Quirk situation.
Todoroki tried to remember what he'd seen and heard during the… incident.
Breathy gasps from the other boy, or maybe that had been himself - nope, irrelevant. Um, passing traffic, only two cars and a bus though, since it had been a quiet evening. He'd seen… red eyes closed, framed with unbelievably luscious pale blond eyelashes, Bakugou's face sharp and soft at the same time as he - Todoroki patted out a flame that had manifested on his shoulder, and tried to recall things that might have been actually important. Had someone come out of the apartment building across the street, or had that been his imagination?
"Did you, uh, see anything unusual?" he asked, trying to distract himself from the feeling that nothing was more important than the memory of Bakugou's enraptured face as they kissed.
"Fuck no, I had my eyes closed, bastard," growled Bakugou. "What kind of weirdo keeps their eyes open when they -" He abruptly choked.
"How was I supposed to know that was weird?" sulked Todoroki.
Bakugou stared at him. "Have you never seen a fucking rom com?"
"A Roman commander? They're called centurions, and I saw statues in the National Museum, but they weren't fu-"
"Oh my God, Icyhot. A romantic comedy. It's a genre of movie."
"Like anime?"
"Fuck - what the - that's not a genre, idiot!"
"I don't speak French."
"HAVE YOU SEEN A SINGLE MOVIE WHERE PEOPLE… do THAT. Or even a porno. WHY AM I HAVING THIS FUCKING CONVERSATION. NEXT TIME JUST DON'T BE A WEIRDO AND CLOSE YOUR WEIRD-ASS TWO-TONED EYES."
"Next time?" Todoroki perked up.
Bakugou continued ranting. "What's even the use of being a rich kid with daddy issues if you can't download hundreds of thousands of yen's worth of porn onto his account with his credit card?"
"…I just found out what to do now that I don't need the florist money anymore."
Bakugou's incoherent scream of rage gave away their position to every teacher and villain within a ten-kilometer radius, and Todoroki resigned himself to hearing his internal Calm Bakugou voice hammering down the insides of his cranium until he said what it wanted him to say.
The voice never came.
"Bakugou."
The screaming continued, punctuated with a few explosions.
"Bakugou! It's stopped!"
"Hah?"
"The voice is gone! You were angry just then, right?"
"Of course I was, fuckhead, I'm always angry."
"And I didn't translate it! It must have been a Quirk, and now it's gone!"
"Huh," said Bakugou, and pushed Todoroki off the roof.
A surprised yelp sounded, followed by the grinding of ice. Moments later, a wind-tousled Todoroki rose back up atop an ice column and stepped onto the roof.
"You pushed me off the roof of a ten-story building," he stated, monotone containing slightly more edge than usual.
"Made you mad?" Bakugou's smile was almost… a smile.
"Yes," Todoroki hissed, and then realized what he'd said. "Yes, you did make me angry. Is Camie still in there?" He rapped his knuckles against Bakugou's skull.
"Fuck no!"
Feeling strangely empty, Todoroki collapsed to sit cross-legged on the concrete. It was nice to have his thoughts back to himself, but now he didn't have anything left to remind him of what had happened. The kissing hadn't changed anything between them, really; the next day had been business as usual, with Bakugou breaking Todoroki's arm after Todoroki had scorched off all of Bakugou's chest hair, perhaps permanently. All they'd had was the strange translation ability, which was not a natural side effect of a first kiss. Todoroki was sure, because he'd asked Google about it. And now, even that was gone like it had never happened.
Or was it? Todoroki could still grasp the threads of logic behind Bakugou's rages, he was sure of it. Perhaps a lasting side-effect of the Quirk? Or of having had Bakugou's tongue in his mouth? Because Todoroki could never imagine it was possible to know a person well enough to guess what they were thinking, contrary to Midoriya's claims from earlier - although he'd have to ask Midoriya about the tongue caveat later.
"I can still do it," Todoroki realized.
"Do what?" snarled Bakugou.
"Understand what you mean. I think. When you were screaming, just now, what you meant was that you couldn't believe how sometimes it looks like I've made no progress at all in socializing, even though you and everybody else has been helping me since last year." Todoroki turned to face Bakugou. "Can you do it, too?"
"Are you fucking angry right now, Candy Cane?"
"I can try." A slight constipated frown took up residence on his face.
"You're fucking pissed at how damned flat you feel most of the time, and you don't know whether it's because your daddy fucked you up so that you're terrified of showing pain of any kind or if it's just something innately wrong with yourself." Bakugou paused. "Yeah, I guess I can still do it. And there's nothing wrong with your two-toned head, some people are just fucking like that, okay? Not everyone feels fifty different emotions during the course of a single day."
"It was… nice," Todoroki said eventually. "When you spoke for me like that. I never… I think I knew the words, once. But I still can't say things just because it feels good to say them, the way you can. It's all… stuck, inside."
Bakugou growled, and kicked at the roof. "It wasn't all shitty all the time for me, either. You… you've got balls, okay? You can just say all that fucking sappy shit all serious like, and I… it's like you said. It was okay to have someone just say that, because I couldn't do it."
Todoroki considered, then sighed. "Do you think we'll ever be able to do this on our own?"
"Do what, express anger normally in a healthy-ass manner or some shit that's not either super repressed or extremely violent?" Bakugou glowered at him, arms crossed.
"Yes."
"No."
"Well, then. I suppose we have no choice. We have to remain each other's anger translators for the foreseeable future."
"Ugh."
"We'll probably have to move in together after we graduate. Adopt a cat."
"Fuck no, we're getting a dog!"
"Two cats and a dog."
"Fine. What fucking ever."
"So. I'm your long-term anger translator."
"God, I can't believe I have to interpret your ice princess face into actual human emotions. Yes, I fucking guess we're stuck as each others' anger translators."
"Wait," Todoroki's eyes went wide as he realized what Bakugou meant. "You mean we're… boyfriends?"
"Ugh, what the fuck did I just say?" shouted Bakugou.
Todoroki smiled. "Anger translators."
"That's what I fucking said!"
But not what he fucking meant, as Bakugou had just confirmed. Todoroki tilted his head, considering the implications. "Then can we do that thing again? You know, the one we were doing when…"
"What else are anger translators for," growled Bakugou, and pulled him in for a kiss.
- fin-
A/N: You too can make nitroglycerin. See Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island (L'ile mysteriuese)
I just love how the todobaku crack fic dynamic is 0 to 100 in 2.5 with massive collateral damage